A composer of chamber music, art songs and organ pieces, Henri Dallier is best known as an organist and renowned for his talents as improviser and performer. Before the first World War, people jostled with one another for the chance to hear him at the Cavaillé-Coll organ in the Church of the Madeleine in Paris, where he played for more than thirty years. Born on March 20, 1849 in Reims, Henri Dallier doubtless received valuable training at that city’s cathedral school and, at the age of sixteen was named choir organist at the Notre-Dame Cathedral of Reims. Shortly thereafter, in 1867, he wrote his First Sonata for organ. He then entered the Paris Conservatory to complete his musical education, notably in the classes of César Franck and François Bazin. Awarded honorable mention for the Concours de Rome in 1878 and a first prize in organ the same year, he was named to succeed Edouard Batiste as organist at Saint-Eustache Church in Paris.

In 1905 he was called to the great organ of the Madeleine, as successor to Gabriel Fauré. Saint-Saëns also once performed on the same organ, and dedicated his third Prelude and Fugue, op. 109 to Dallier in 1898. In spite of his many successes and growing fame, Henri Dallier always remained an affable man, modest, wise and sometimes witty. An organ virtuoso, also an excellent pianist, he devoted much of his energy to teaching, first at the École Niedermeyer and then at the Paris Conservatory from 1908. There he taught harmony for twenty years before his retirement in 1928. The catalog of Henri Dallier shows more diversity than quantity, and his works reveal writing of refined musicality. He produced compositions for piano, chamber music among which can be cited a piano quintet (1881), a piano trio (1898, Fromont), a Fantaisie Caprice for oboe and piano (Leduc), vocal music and universally-known organ pieces including the Cinq Invocations for large organ (1925, H Lemoine). On December 23, 1934 Henri Dallier fell victim to “an insidious illness, painful in its form and slow progression.”

Denis Havard de la Montagne (translation Haden McKay) www.musimem.com